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 This is a suggested 8 days/7 nights itinerary.

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 Destination Highlights

 Croatia and Slovenia

As in any country you have to be a local to know all the nooks and crannies of your country. They are the hidden treasures that you'll find on this tour. Porec, Rovinj, Opatija, Pula and then hop, skip and a jump to neighboring Slovenia and visits to Ljubljana, Postojna Caves and Lake Bled.
 

 Day 1: Pula / Opatija

Opatija, often called the Nice of the Adriatic, is one of the most popular tourist resorts in Croatia and a place with the longest tourist tradition on the eastern coast of the Adriatic.
Named after the Benedictine abbey of St. James first mentioned in 1449. Between 1560 and 1723 owned by the Augustinians from Rijeka, and since 1774 a property of the chapter of Rijeka. The present chapel of St. James was built in 1506 and extended in 1937. The architecture of hotels, boarding houses and villas has historicist neo-style features, with occasional examples of Art Nouveau; structured fronts, the size and type of the openings (balconies, loggias) and the ornamentation on the fronts render the buildings a Mediterranean aspect.

Overnight at hotel in Opatija.

 Day 2: Opatija / Pula  / Rovinj / Porec / Opatija

Breakfast.

The Roman Amphitheatre (commonly called Arena), from the 1st and 2nd centuries, occupies a dominant position above the harbour. It has an elliptic ground-plan (132.45 x 105.10 m); the walls are 30.45 m high; it could seat 23,000 spectators. It is the world's sixth largest preserved amphitheatre. Through the Triumphal Arch of the Sergi one enters Sergi Street, the busiest street in the old part of the town. Clerisseau Street leads to the Dante Square, where a 15th-century Gothic church, reconstructed on several occasions, stands. Flacius Street leads to the Byzantine memorial chapel from the 6th century, which was a part of the collapsed, grandiose basilica Santa Maria Formosa (Canneto), built around AD 556; the marble ornamentation and columns of the basilica were used in the construction of the San Marco Basilica in Venice. The first tourist excursions to Pula were recorded at the beginning of the 19th century. Giovanni Carrara, a conservator of antiquities in Pula, guided the sightseeing tours for distinguished personalities and organized groups in 1828. In 1832 Pula was visited by the Austrian emperor Ferdinand I.

Rovinj is one of the most developed seaside resorts in Croatia, offering a whole range of visitor opportunities in a picturesque ambience of the ancient town, surrounded by luxuriant pine forests (the cape of Zlatni Rt is designated as a park forest, while the coast and islands of Rovinj are set aside as a protected landscape). Rovinj is a typical example of a town of the Mediterranean type. It was fortified by walls in two rows as early as the Middle Ages, with three town gates (restored and reinforced by Venice in the 15th c.), later pulled down or integrated into new structures. From the 17th century the town started to develop outside the town walls and in 1763 the islet was connected with the mainland. The town is dominated by the Baroque three-nave church of St. Euphemia (Fuma), erected in 1736 on the location of earlier sacral buildings; its front dates back to 1883.

The Rovinj Town Museum keeps a valuable collection of paintings from the period between the 16th and the 18th centuries, as well as a contemporary art collection.

Even today the ground plan of Porec reveals the typical geometric pattern of a Roman castrum; the decumanus ("main road") has preserved the character of the main road even today. In the 6th century the complex of St. Euphrasius Basilica was built. In the following centuries the town suffered a decline; it was renovated at the end of the 12th century; in the 13th century the town walls were reinforced, and in the 15th century, facing the Turkish threat, the town erected a new fortification system. In the 18th century the town walls, having lost their function, gradually decayed. A narrow passage leads west of the Canon's Residence to the complex of Euphrasius Basilica (mid-6th c.), consisting of the church, atrium, baptistery and the former palace of the diocese. Being richly decorated and well preserved, the whole complex represents one of the most important monuments of the Byzantine art. The first sacral object erected on this location was the so-called Maurus Oratory built in the second half of the 3rd century (fragments of the mosaic have been preserved). After the Edict of Milan in 313, a public church was built on this location, with its area doubled in the 4th century; one of the rooms was used for the service and the other represented a martyrium (where the relics of the Porec martyr, St. Maurus, were kept).

Dinner and overnight at hotel in Opatija.

 Day 3: Opatija / Postojna / Ljubljana / Bled

Breakfast.

The mysterious Postojna cave world is the part of Slovenia which has been carved, shaped and created by water; deep within these world-famous caves hide the most precious beauty created through millions of years, drop by drop, year after year... The 20-kilometre-long underworld system is a miracle in itself, but one becomes truly astounded at the look of the mysterious "human fish" (Proteus Anguinus), wondering at the strange form of life preserved in the underground kingdom. Another mystery of the underground ... The cave is accessible without special equipment, and has a constant temperature of 10 degrees Celsius. Visitors are taken for a tour by a special cave train, accompanied by experienced guides. A visit takes an hour and a half.

With its 280.000 inhabitants, Ljubljana most certainly ranks among the smaller European capitals, but we are convinced that many bigger cities could be envious of all that it has, and many who would not. Ljubljana did not become a capital overnight, it prepared for this for centuries. When it was still "only" a provincial capital of Carniola, it became the capital for all Slovenians in 1918, when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed. A year later, in 1919, it acquired a university, in 1938 the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, a radio station as early as 1926 and TV in 1957. It had its own Philharmonic in 1701 and its opera exactly one hundred years ago, not to speak of its theatres. In short, if smallness is its only deficiency, let it be so, as long as it can! Even a good thirty years ago the trademark of Ljubljana was its skyscraper and castle.

The castle which is about a thousand years old, has been under reconstruction for quite a few years now, so that apart from seeing its renovated chapel of St. George, with its coats-of-arms, the pentagonal tower and wedding Hall, we most strongly recommend a visit to its high tower. The points is, there is a fantastic view from there (as you can see below), not only of the city (the rooftops of Old Ljubljana) and its surroundings (like the moody marsh Barje, the green park Tivoli) but also to the Kamnik Alps in the north and the Julian Alps with Triglav and the Karavanke Alps to the north-west.

Overnight in the hotel in Bled.

 Day 4: Bled / Zagreb

Breakfast.

The fertile land, the protective shelter of the castle hill and the island, have always invited the settlement of the Bled area. The first, and still rare traces of humans in Bled date back to the Stone Age. In the Iron Age, when the mining of iron was began in the Alpine regions, settlement increased. It is quite probable that in 1004, when the German Emperor Henrik II gave the Bled estate to Bishop Albuin of Brixen as a gift, only a Romanesque tower stood in the place of the present day castle, protected by walls facing the gentle slope of the castle hill. In the late Middle Ages more towers were built and the fortifications were improved. The castle is now arranged as an exhibition area. The display rooms near the chapel, a most interesting building, present the ancient history of Bled from the first excavations, and the castle in individual stages of its historical development with furniture, characteristic of those times.  Although these pieces are not originally from Bled Castle, they are important as an illustration of the style of living in the historical periods presented.
 

Overnight in the hotel in Zagreb.

 Day 5: Zagreb / Plitvice

Breakfast.

Ban Josip Jelacic Square, with the equestrian statue of Ban Jelacic (made by the sculptor Antun Fernkorn, 1866), is the usual starting point for sightseeing tours through the three historical parts of Zagreb: the Upper Town (Gornji Grad), Kaptol and the Lower Town (Donji Grad).

Gornji Grad is a more recent name for the mediaeval town which was chartered in 1242. (by the so-called Golden Bull) and thus obtained the status of "the free royal town on Gradec Hill of Zagreb". It lies on a slope between the walls constructed around the mid-13th century. The town used to have four gates.

The Stone Gate (Kamenita Vrata), the only preserved city gate, represents the entrance to the Upper Town. It was first mentioned in the Middle Ages, and its present aspect dates from 1760, when the Baroque chapel of the Mother of God was constructed around the old painting by a local master, which survived the fire of 1731.

St. Mark Square is the centre of the Upper Town, the main square of the former Gradec. The town parish church of St. Mark was built in the mid-13th century. Catherine's Square is another square in the Upper Town, dominated by the church of St. Catherine, the most beautiful Baroque church in Zagreb. It was erected by the Jesuits between 1620. and 1632.

The Gothic Cathedral, built from the 13th to the end of the 15th century, was renovated after the earthquake of 1880, when the neo-Gothic façade with two high bell towers (105 m), which have become the symbol of Zagreb, was built. The central city cemetery Mirogoj, opened in 1876, lies outside the heart of the city. The mortuary, the impressive and picturesque arcades with the church of Christ the King (architect H. Bollé, 1883-1914) in particular, as well as the tombs, in which notable personalities were buried, monuments and the greenery make Mirogoj a distinguished monument of the culture and history of Zagreb and Croatia.

Overnight at hotel in Plitvice.

 Day 6: Plitvice/ Opatija

Breakfast.

16 interlinked lakes between Mala Kapela Mountain and Pljesevica Mountain in the region of Lika are inscribed on the List of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The upper lakes, surrounded by thick forests and interlinked by numerous waterfalls, lie in a dolomite valley, while the lower lakes, smaller and shallower, surrounded only by sparse underbrush, lie on the limestone bedrock. The Lakes receive most of their water from the rivers called Bijela and Crna Rijeka (White and Black Rivers), which are joined into one course south of Proscansko Lake. The upper lakes separated by dolomite barriers, which grow with the formation of travertine, forming thus travertine barriers.

Travertine is mostly formed on the spots where water falls from an elevation, by the incrustation of algae and moss with calcium carbonate. The lower lakes were formed by crumbling and caving-in of the vaults above subterranean cavities through which water of the upper lakes disappeared. Due to their natural beauty and significance, the Plitvice Lakes and a large forest complex around it were set aside as a national park in 1949.

Transfer to Opatija in the late afternoon.

Overnight at hotel in Opatija.

 Day 7: Opatija

Breakfast.

All day at leisure in Opatija.

Overnight at hotel in Opatija.

 Day 8: Opatija / Pula

Breakfast.

Tour ends with transfers to the airport.

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